Some of the difficulties that commentaries discuss arise because we do not know enough about the situation to which Paul refers. In the present verse these difficulties are impossible to separate from problems of translation.

Otherwise (Good News Bible‘s “Now”): Paul is digressing here from the main subject of the resurrection of Christ and of the believers. Other possible renderings of this sentence are “Just for a moment let us think about those people who are baptized on behalf of dead people” or “… those people who receive baptism on behalf of people who have died.”

Nowhere else does the New Testament mention baptism on behalf of the dead. Some ancient Greek commentators have claimed that “baptism on behalf of the dead” refers to baptism in order to ensure the resurrection of living people themselves, not to ensure the resurrection of others who have died. This interpretation is unlikely, for one reason, because people in the final sentence of the verse seems to refer to a particular group in the church. All translations that we consulted agree with the interpretation that underlies Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible.

What do people mean…? is literally “what will they do?” The use of the future tense is unexpected and difficult. Revised Standard Version‘s what do people mean and Good News Bible‘s “What do they hope to accomplish?” represent two main interpretations. Good News Bible seems to make better sense of the future tense. Translator’s New Testament‘s translation, “what good will those people do who are baptised for the dead?” agrees with Good News Bible.

The clause If the dead are not raised at all may be connected either with the earlier part of the sentence or the last part. In verses 12-19, conditional clauses beginning with If have been placed at the beginning of the sentences. So it is probably more natural here to begin a new sentence with If and connect this clause with what follows.

Good News Bible‘s “as some claim” is added as a reminder of what was said in verse 12; other common language translations do not follow Good News Bible‘s example.

Revised Standard Version‘s the dead are not raised at all shows the emphatic quality of the Greek; this is missing in Good News Bible. Some languages can render this clause as “If God does not raise the dead to life at all….”

The last clause, beginning with why are people …, is also emphatic. It can be phrased “What possible reason can those people have for being baptized for the dead?”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .